-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- I 'm looking forward to Thursday night 's installment of CNN 's `` The Sixties '' with some trepidation . True , it 's another excellent installment in the series . Capturing the highlights and essence of a decade , especially one as turbulent and historically significant as the '60s , is not easy .

Given the controversial nature of many of the events -- at the time and even today -- and given how much influence some of those movements and events still exert , the task of putting together even a multipart series is daunting .

Thursday 's episode will cover the 1968 assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. , on April 4 , and of Bobby Kennedy , on June 5 . Other episodes will cover the beginnings of the gay rights movement -- the Stonewall riots -- and the emergence of the women 's rights movement .

Those events changed my life , immediately . Those movements changed the way I saw the world , eventually .

I was born on December 15 , 1959 -- the cusp of the '60s . As the baby boomers came of age , or at least entered their teens , I went from infancy , to being a toddler , to childhood . I have no direct memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis , JFK 's assassination , the Beatles coming to America , or the buildup of the Vietnam War .

`` I Have A Dream '' was my dream -- it still is , of course -- but I learned the words in reruns .

But I was old enough to be affected directly by the events in this episode . As I wrote in `` Cooking With Grease , '' I grew up on April 4 , 1968 , when Martin Luther King was shot . I 'd been active in neighborhood politics even before , but that night , at 9 years old , I joined the civil rights movement . I had no choice . None of us did .

When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated two months later , we prayed . I remember praying . I remember my anger , my fear , my determination . I remember talking to everyone I trusted , everyone I thought wise . The times indeed were changing , but nobody knew what they were changing into .

Our challenge was channeling anger into action , transforming despair into determination , using defeat to become more disciplined . I learned early it 's a lifetime challenge .

While the civil rights movement was woven into my childhood , it took a bit longer for me to become aware of what was then called the women 's liberation movement .

Of course , the fight for equality goes back into the 19th century , even to Founders like Abigail Adams .

But it was in 1968 that `` women 's lib '' became an official part of the societal shift , the tide of change toward economic , social and legal equality . -LRB- The name `` women 's liberation '' came from a nationally circulated newsletter that came out of Chicago . -RRB-

It was a time of consciousness-raising , and women refused to be left out .

In 1968 , 100 women protested the Miss America beauty pageant . In 1972 , Gloria Steinem published the first issue of Ms. Magazine , but the seeds had been sown earlier . Women like Steinem , Bella Abzug , Shirley Chisholm , Betty Friedan , Barbara Jordan -- they showed a young girl just entering her teens that being a woman was n't a political handicap , but an asset . Or it could be .

The gay rights movement also started in the late '60s , but it had the farthest to go . Like the push for women 's equality , it actually started earlier . It just found its voice , following the footsteps of the civil rights and women 's rights movements .

The impetus was the Stonewall riots . When police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village on June 28 , 1969 , it sent shock waves through the gay and lesbian community .

Police lost control of the situation , people rioted , and more protests occurred the next night , and again on other nights . Village residents began organizing , trying to establish places where gays and lesbians could be open without harassment or arrest .

Organizing nationwide was slow . Gaining acceptance by other activist groups was slow . Getting respect and equal treatment before the law was slow . It still is .

But where we are today began then . And if we want to have an honest discussion about where we are , and where we can and should go , we need to understand the '60s a lot better than we do .

I hope you 'll tune in .

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Events in `` The Sixties '' changed the world and the way Donna Brazile saw it

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MLK , RFK killed in 1968 . Brazile was only 9 but joined the civil rights movement

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Civil rights , women 's rights , gay rights , all came into their own in the '60s

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To discuss who we are and where we can go , we need to understand the '60s